


You Turn The Page

by PenguinofProse



Series: S4 Time Jump AUs [16]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode AU: s04e13 Praimfaya, Episode: s04e13 Praimfaya - Time Jump, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Post-Episode: s04e13 Praimfaya, Presumed character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:48:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25783144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/pseuds/PenguinofProse
Summary: S4 time jump AU. In which Bellamy is in the bunker and thinks Clarke is dead, and both of them are trying to process their grief and guilt. Featuring paternal Kane, maternal Abby, nightblood logistics and found family. Angst with a happy ending.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake & Abby Griffin, Bellamy Blake & Marcus Kane, Bellamy Blake & Octavia Blake, Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Clarke Griffin & Madi
Series: S4 Time Jump AUs [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764070
Comments: 19
Kudos: 149





	You Turn The Page

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to yet another time jump. Someone asked for this prompt and I can no longer remember who, but if it was you, congrats on a great prompt and many thanks! Huge thanks to Stormkpr for betaing it too - truly, you are a hero. Happy reading!
> 
> Please be aware there's some graphic description of depression and suicidal thoughts in this story.

_You turn the page_.

Kane said that to him, just a few short months ago. Bellamy remembers it well – those words stayed with him, through all the time he was trying to redeem himself for his role in Pike's regime while they planned for the end of the world. He has lived by them, more or less, trying to do better day by day, trying to work for forgiveness and reconciliation.

So why the hell can he not live by them, now, when it comes to Clarke?

He's never been that good at moving on, where Clarke is concerned. He finds it harder to forgive and forget when she hurts him – there's something about the way he's so damn in love with her that makes wounds even more painful, coming from her. He remembers that, when she chose to stay in Polis after the Mount Weather explosion. He ought to have been mourning his actual girlfriend, or worrying about his sister or his people. But instead he just found himself drowning his sorrows and following Pike because he was so broken and scared without Clarke by his side.

It's pathetic. It's thoroughly and absolutely pathetic, that she can get to him like that.

He's not going to let it happen again, he resolves, as he forces a neutral expression onto his face and helps Miller to show the last Arkadians to their dorms. When Clarke gets back from fetching Raven, and they have to spend the next five years together in this damn hole in the ground, he is going to maintain a polite distance from her.

He's going to practise falling out of love with her, in fact. That seems like a good solution. That seems like a more productive kind of moving on.

His task finished, he heads to his sister's office. It's a little strange that his baby sister is in charge of the human race, now, but he figures he'll get used to it. He's grown accustomed to plenty of other strange things, since he came to Earth.

"O. Hey. Everyone's settled into their dorms now." He reports.

"Except Clarke and Raven." She points out, because of course they are still presumably en route back from the island.

"Yeah. Except them. What do you want me to do next?" He asks, because he cannot allow himself to sit here and decide whether he's still worried about the woman he intends to move on from.

Octavia looks confused. "Don't you want to stay here and see if they call? Time's getting short. Aren't you worried?"

He tries for a shrug, but fails. "Clarke can take care of herself." He supposes he ought to have something to say about Raven, too, but she doesn't exactly stir up such strong emotions in him.

Now Octavia looks outright shocked. "You're kidding me? What happened between you two?"

What an absurd question. "She locked you out. You were there, O. You know exactly what happened." He leaves out the near-shooting, because he still hasn't entirely processed that himself.

"But she -"

"I'm done with settling everyone in." He repeats firmly. "I don't want to wait at the radio. I have no interest in anything Clarke has to say. So what am I doing now?"

"Whatever you want. Go settle into your dorm, I guess."

He nods. He walks towards the door. And just at the threshold, he gives into impulse and throws a last request over his shoulder.

"I'm not going to wait at the radio. But – you'll tell me if there's any news, right?"

He just makes out his sister's exasperated noise of agreement before he leaves the room.

…...

Clarke has made it to the island, and is taking a moment to call her loved ones back in Polis before she helps to prep the rocket to flee to space. As plans go, it's not the most reliable plan she has ever concocted, but she figures it has to be better than certain death.

She speaks to her mother, first, tells her that she loves her and that they'll meet again – exactly what you might expect. She speaks to Kane for a moment, asks him to watch over her mum and Jaha, too. She still has a soft spot for her best friend's father, even if he seems to have lost his touch, these days.

And then, when she has run out of other people to say goodbye to, comes the moment she has been dreading.

"Is Bellamy there?" She gets the words out, finding them something of a challenge since her last in-person interaction with him involved a loaded gun and substantial drama.

Suddenly it is Octavia's voice she hears, not Kane's. "He's not here at the moment, Clarke. He's busy settling the rest of Skaikru into their dorms. But he'll be here soon – I've sent Miller to fetch him. I know he'll want to speak to you."

Clarke is fairly certain that's a lie. She knows Bellamy pretty well, she likes to think, and she's almost convinced that nothing would stop him from hovering permanently at the radio if he actually wanted to speak to her. But it's a kind lie, at least, and she's grateful for that. It's more than she deserves – the universe has conspired to prevent her from showing Octavia much kindness, these last forty-eight hours.

She figures she might as well make things right with one Blake sibling, today, even if she cannot mend her relationship with the other.

"Thanks, Octavia. That's kind of you. I just wanted to tell him how sorry I am."

"He'll be here any minute." Octavia says, in a voice Clarke thinks sounds a little strange. "Really. And I know he'll want to hear what you have to say. He's – he's not doing so well without you, already."

"It's going to be a long five years." Clarke offers.

Octavia never replies. The radio is dead, nothing but static spilling from the speaker.

Clarke sighs heavily, even though no one can hear her. Perhaps it's _because_ no one can hear her that she feels able to sigh – for the first time in months she is nobody's leader, and no one is looking at her.

She can take this moment just to rest her head on her hands and mourn the passing of her strange, dysfunctional, and utterly wonderful relationship with Bellamy.

She can't take longer than a moment, though. She has to help prepare the rocket, and has to put her leadership face back on for the benefit of the friends, old and new, who are in the lab here. And she supposes she ought to look on the bright side, and rejoice in her unexpected reconciliation with Octavia, rather than worrying about losing Bellamy's respect.

No, let's be honest here. It's not his respect she's worried about losing.

It's his love.

…...

Bellamy knows he's too late the moment he walks into his sister's office and sees the look on her face while she gazes helplessly at the silent radio. All the same, he asks the question, as he takes deep breaths and tries to pretend he did not sprint straight here the moment Miller said Clarke was on the radio.

"Hey. Miller said Clarke called?"

"She did call." Octavia agrees, rather solemnly. "But the radio's cut out now."

"And?" Why is she looking at him like that? Why is Kane standing up and offering him a chair? Even if he missed her call, that only means he needs to wait a couple more hours until she gets back here to speak to her, right?

"You should sit down, Bellamy." Kane recommends.

"What's going on?"

"Take the chair, Bellamy." Abby reiterates, and he notes for the first time that there are tears on her cheeks.

All at once, he realises that this is bad. This is very bad indeed, and he is only too grateful to sink into that convenient chair after all.

"What's happened? Where is she?" He's growing frantic now.

There's a tense pause. The three of them look at each other, silently debating who will tell him the news, and Bellamy is on the point of throttling whoever he reaches first and demanding that they explain what the hell is going on.

It's Octavia who breaks the news.

"They're going to space, Bell. Raven's going to fly Becca's rocket to space. And they're feeling good about it – Raven says it'll be OK. Only – that means that it'll be five years until we see them again."

"They're going to space." He repeats, hollow. He didn't catch much of what she said after that, if he's being honest.

"Yeah. They're going to the Ring. They've got it all planned out."

"They're going to spend five years in space and I don't even get to say goodbye."

To his surprise, Octavia bristles at that, and fixes him with a sharp glare. "It's not that you _don't get_ to say goodbye, Bell. You chose not to be here. This is on you."

That startles him. He simply wasn't expecting it – the woman everyone in the room knows full well he's in love with is going to be in space for the next five years. He sort of thought that might earn him some sympathy, the odd hug, and a little leeway, not a lecture about his mistakes.

He knows he's made mistakes, thank you very much. He's got five years to kick himself for that – he doesn't need his sister wading in too.

He doesn't reply. He simply bites his lip, hard, and wonders what the hell to do next.

"When you say the radio cut out – it's really not working?" He asks, because he has to check.

"It's not working." Kane confirms gently.

Well, then. He has a lot of respect for Kane, and so if he says it's broken, then broken it must truly be.

He walks out of the room. It's as simple as that. He has no idea where he's going, no idea how to even start processing everything that's just happened, but he keeps on walking. He decides this is probably what counts as being in shock. It feels like the world is moving around him, somehow, even though he knows he has solid concrete beneath his feet. The sounds of the other people in the hallways seem muted, and he notices their sharp stares and concerned looks as if watching the whole thing happen to someone else.

Maybe he could stay like this for five years. Maybe he could spend the whole time listening to his heartbeat in his ears and squinting at the world, instead of ever having to face up to the truth.

The fog clears a little when he hears Kane repeatedly saying his name, and realises that the older man has hold of his arm.

"Bellamy? Bellamy, are you hearing me?"

He nods, disorientated, but basically listening.

"You'll get through this, OK? You get through this the same way you've gotten through everything else on the ground. You take it one day at a time, you do the best you can."

He nods. He can deal with this – it's Kane being Kane, his words both sensible and more or less predictable.

Then Kane moves onto a theme Bellamy has not heard him try before. "She'll come home. You know she will – she's a survivor. You'll meet again."

"We'll meet again." He echoes.

He's not sure whether he says the words because he means them, or because he's rather struggling with the concept of coherent conversation, just now.

…...

Clarke can pinpoint the exact moment she knows she won't make it back to the rocket.

It's when the timer on her wrist ticks down through ten minutes with the dish still not aligned, and she knows she has to climb the tower.

She does it. Of course she does it – saving people seems to be her calling in life. But it's an unpleasant experience to say the least, arms burning, lungs screaming, counting down the long lonely minutes until she will burn to death without a single friend to hold her hand as she slips away.

When the dish is aligned and the death wave is nearly upon her she falls – or perhaps she jumps. She expects that to kill her in and of itself. In fact, she reckons, it would be a quicker end than burning to death, and rather less painful.

But snow cushions her landing, and so it is that she picks up her feet and makes a run for it.

Survival instinct is an odd thing, she decides, as she sprints over the fast-melting snow. She's not sure why she _wants_ to live. She saw the rocket take off, and Polis is miles away. Even if she survives this, she's only condemning herself to lonely suffering until she eventually starves to death in the lab, or dies of radiation sickness in the world outside.

But still she runs.

Her skin is burning, blistering, crumbling into agonising ashes even as she runs. It hurts – it hurts like nothing she has ever felt before – and she wonders, briefly, if hell will be like this, when she gets there.

She stumbles into the lab, exhausted, in pain, vomiting black blood.

Against sense, against probability, and almost against her own inclination, she's alive.

…...

Bellamy finds that the world comes back into focus, slightly, once then news about Clarke and the others going to space has sunk in. He wouldn't say that he's _processed_ it yet, as such. He's still feeling rather confused, because he was very angry with her, and also very in love with her, and now she's very far away. It's a lot of extreme emotions, and they don't fit together well.

He goes to his sister's office, late that first night. He decides he might as well stay up a little longer, seeing as he doesn't expect to get much sleep.

And he decides, too, that he might as well try the radio.

"Hey, Clarke. Don't know if you can hear me?"

She either can't, or chooses not to reply. He wouldn't blame her if she chose to ignore him, he thinks, after he refused to join her in fetching Raven and opted not to stand by the radio. But she's not usually so vengeful as that – emotional overreactions are more his speciality.

"Clarke, are you hearing me?"

Another beat of silence.

"I just wanted to call – I guess maybe I'm trying to make up for not being there when you called earlier? I don't know. I don't know _anything_ , at the minute, it feels like."

Still no response.

"No, maybe that's not right. Maybe it's more that I know too many things, and I haven't worked out how to fit them all together yet. I know I'm still angry with you for what you did to O and me. But – I'm more angry with myself for letting you down. I'm angry with myself for not saying goodbye. And now I guess you're going to spend five years angry with me and thinking that I hate you."

He pauses, swallows.

"I'm tired of all this anger. I've said that to you before, but not much changed, did it? There's a lot to be angry about, on the ground. I guess I hope space is more peaceful for you. I wish we could do better at peace down here, too. Kane gave me another motivational speech about doing my best every day. I know he meant well but it sounded kind of stupid, when I'm pretty sure I've done nothing but my _worst_ , this last day."

She still hasn't answered, and he begins to realise that means she probably never will. So it is that he draws in a shuddering breath, and forces out the final part of his message.

"I know something else, too. I know I love you, even when I'm angry. I wish -" He breaks off, choking on a sob, and collects himself. "May we meet again."

The radio's still silent, taunting him, telling him that there's no sense in trying to put right now what he did so irrevocably wrong this morning.

…...

Clarke is scared. That's an emotion she ought to be used to by now – she's faced fear a thousand times, since she came to the Earth all those months ago. But this is a new kind of fear, a fear born of loneliness and facing what is completely unknown.

She's been here a month, now, and her food is running out. But she has absolutely no idea what will happen when she opens the doors of the lab. She could die of acute radiation exposure within minutes, or find herself burned and blistered all over again. Sure, she seems to have recovered from that first dose of radiation, so the nightblood must be doing something, but she doesn't have the slightest idea how it works or what its limits are.

She has no idea what the landscape will be like, either, or how she will survive. Will any prey or vegetation have survived the death wave? Will there be water sources and enough shade? Or will the Earth have fallen into some kind of nuclear winter that will have her freezing to death the first night she braves the elements?

And she's going to have to face this alone, not just without backup, but knowing that she will not see another human being for the next five years – if she survives that long.

She doesn't even have the memory of an affectionate goodbye with her loved ones to cling onto and remind her that there are people waiting for her. She had a rushed radio call with her mother, and instructions to hurry from Raven. She didn't get to say goodbye to Bellamy at all, and that hurts more than anything.

She wonders whether there's really any point in leaving the lab. She knows she'll starve to death if she stays here, but she suspects that her fate will be much the same if she leaves. She's not sure she can bring herself to keep fighting, when it's not altogether clear what she's actually fighting _for_ , any more.

She sighs, and loads a back pack, and heads for the door. It seems like the great outdoors is calling her, and it looks like that damn survival instinct is still going strong.

Starving to death would have sucked anyway, she decides, as she climbs the stairs.

…...

Bellamy realises something, those first few weeks under the ground. He realises that such pearls of wisdom as _take it day by day_ , _do better_ , and _turn the page_ are complete and utter crap. Anyone who has ever seriously said any of those things can know nothing of grief or guilt, he decides. If they had, they would know that it is nigh on impossible to look only forward, when your guilty conscience and self loathing keep trying to drag you back into the past. Most mornings, his confused heartache feels like an anchor, tying him to the bed, insisting that he ought to dwell on the mistakes of yesterday rather than the opportunities of today.

It's stupid that he's grieving Clarke when she is, to the best of his knowledge, alive on a space station at this very moment. But he supposes he's grieving their relationship, and her presence, even if he is not actually mourning her life.

He tries to do better. Really, he does. He spends a lot of time with his sister, patching up their relationship and supporting her as she learns how to lead, and that helps ease his guilt somewhat. Right now, for example, he's sitting with her and they're both reading about how the hydrofarm works. He figures it's best that they both have at least a basic working knowledge of every aspect of the bunker she is responsible for.

Kane knocks at the office door and enters.

"Hey." Bellamy greets him, barely looking up from the task he is concentrating on. Octavia does not say a word, utterly absorbed in her duty.

"You two need to leave that and eat supper." Kane recommends firmly.

Bellamy snorts. He supposes Kane is the closest to a father figure he and Octavia have ever had, but it is only in the last week or so that he has started actually monitoring their eating habits.

"We're fine, Kane." Octavia insists, waving a dismissive hand.

Kane sighs and takes a chair without waiting to be invited. "You're not _fine_. Neither of you are fine. We all know what's going on here – Bellamy's still processing what happened with Clarke. And that's OK, and it's natural. But it's not good that he's dragging you into unhealthy habits with him." He says, gesturing at the work they are both occupied with.

"What would you have me do instead?" Bellamy snaps, near breaking point. "And don't tell me to _live for today_ , or whatever the hell else it is this evening. I can't do that, Kane. I can't just cut it off like that and box it up. I can't do it." He finishes his tirade, looks up to see his sister looking at him in shock and Kane looking at him in concern.

The most worrying thing of all is that he's past caring that he just let his guard down like that, just exposed himself for the confused monster he is in front of two people whose good opinion he craves.

Kane adopts a soft smile and a firm tone, every inch the commanding officer Bellamy has grown to respect during their time on Earth. "It's not about cutting off your feelings, Bellamy. Perhaps I haven't always given you the best advice, or phrased it well. All you can ever ask yourself to do – and all I would ever ask you to do – is to choose the best option, every time a choice is put in front of you. Sometimes that means choosing to save a person instead of condemning them, sometimes it means choosing to stop a war. But right now it means choosing to eat a healthy meal instead of working yourself into the ground."

Well, now. That does sound a little more manageable. "One choice at a time, instead of one day at a time." He summarises.

"One choice at a time." Kane agrees. " _That's_ how you turn the page."

Bellamy nods. He sets aside the notes about the hydrofarm. And it might be because he respects Kane's opinions, even if he doesn't always follow his orders, or it might be because he does like the sound of doing better, or it might just be because he's pretty damn hungry, now he comes to think about it – but whatever the reason, he stands up, and he leads his little sister to supper.

…...

Clarke has been blessed by more luck than she would have expected, so far, since she left the lab. She wonders if it's just the universe taunting her, prolonging her agony – she was teetering on the brink of desperation, when she found the rover, still working, and since then she's had a good run.

She's at Polis now, hoping to get into the bunker.

Today is the day her luck runs out.

She realises that the moment she sees the rubble blanketing the city, if she's being honest. But still she tries. That same instinct that had her running from the tower to the lab with fire snapping at her heels has her digging, now, tugging chunks of rubble out of the way and trying desperately to reach the bunker.

If she reaches that bunker, she will survive. More than that – she might actually live a decent life, by the standards of an apocalypse. She would have her mother's company, as well as Kane and Jackson and Miller and so many more of her friends.

She might even get the chance to put things right with Bellamy.

No, she's getting ahead of herself, there. If he was too angry with her to say goodbye when the world was ending, he's hardly likely to forgive her so easily when she gets this door open.

She refocuses on her task, heaving great chunks of concrete with her bare hands. There's something strangely cathartic about the rough surface scraping against her skin and leaving bloody grazes on her palms, the pain of it a kind of penance for the time she locked Octavia and the eleven clans out and left them to scratch hopelessly at the door, she thinks.

She gets nowhere. It's worse than that – she even causes a sort of avalanche of rubble, the whole teetering pile shifting and almost crushing her to death.

That's when she gives up, and crawls out of the wreckage, and weeps.

…...

Bellamy never realised that living in a bunker would be so noisy. Despite the yards of concrete that protect them, they still hear crashing noise from the destruction of the city more loudly than he would have expected. It was at its worst during the death wave, of course, but there's another particularly loud bout of noise today.

It's annoying, really. He's trying to write a timetable for the school, and that's difficult when the children are all different ages, with different languages and backgrounds, and only three people have volunteered to teach. But he needs to get this right, because it's part of his mission to turn the page, to do the right thing, to be a better man when Clarke gets back here and he can put things right between them. And then he needs to help Indra in the weapons room, and after that he has a meeting scheduled with Kara Cooper. So he could do without the distracting noise.

The rubble stops shifting, at last, and he sighs in relief and gets back to his timetable.

…...

The human brain is a foolish thing, Clarke realises, in the days that follow. She is utterly convinced that she is going to die soon. She has no source of food or water, insufficient protection from the elements, and her equipment has long since failed her. More than that, she has no purpose, now – she is the Commander of Death, but the only person left to kill is herself.

She tells herself that she's done with life at least a hundred times, and yet somehow, she goes on breathing.

It's stupid. It's utterly and completely ridiculous. She cannot see any reason to go on living, but somehow she never quite gets around to dying.

It's not because she's clinging on for anything or anyone. The human race no longer needs her – they have Octavia, now. She figures she's unlikely to live long enough to see her mother however hard she tries, and anyway, Abby has Kane to help her through any grief she might feel. And Bellamy doesn't want her words or her company or her love any more, so that's that.

She reaches an odd sort of in-between state, where she walks through life wishing she could simply not wake up tomorrow, yet she cannot quite raise the pistol to her temple and pull the trigger herself.

She nearly does it, in the desert, at the foot of a sand dune she is too exhausted – both mentally and physically – to climb. She's only eighteen years old, barely beyond her childhood. She's barely had a chance to truly live her life, she seethes, and yet here she is, staring death in the face.

But then she sees the bird, and that infuriating survival instinct kicks in, and she lives to die another day.

…...

Bellamy has had a good morning. He's coordinated an inventory of their weapons, inspected the hydrofarm, and gone to show his support for the new school. He doesn't mind helping his sister with the administration aspects of running this place, but he much prefers being out and about – as much as is possible under ground – where he can really interact with people and get a feel for how morale is in the bunker. He particularly loves visiting the school, and is wondering if he might spend more time there, in the future, if Octavia can spare him.

His morning sours very abruptly when Miller runs straight into him, a harassed expression on his face.

"Bellamy. Bellamy, hey. You need to get to your sister's office. She says it's urgent."

Well, now. That sounds ominous. In fact, strangely, it reminds him of that first day, when Miller summoned him to speak to Clarke on the radio and he made it there too late. His friend's face holds a similar kind of anxious obedience, and the message is at least as frantic.

The sense of deja-vu grows even stronger when he arrives in the office. Octavia and Abby are sitting there, Kane hovering at Abby's shoulder, and Bellamy is gestured to a seat.

Abby is crying.

No. No, she can't be crying. Why would Abby be crying? Why would this particular group of people be summoned here together if not -

"Bellamy. I'm sorry, but we've had some sad news." Kane says, voice carefully controlled, but Bellamy can see his mouth working despite his best efforts.

He nods. He cannot bring himself to speak, because he's pretty sure he's already worked out where this is going, in his heart.

"Clarke's dead, Bell." It's Octavia who says it. "She didn't make it to the rocket. She didn't get there in time – she had to run to the tower to send a signal to the Ring so the others could survive. She died saving them."

He nods, silent. That makes a lot of sense, he figures. Clarke died saving people – that does sound like her.

Clarke died.

Clarke's _dead_.

That's when it hits him. It hits him so hard he crumples, curls in on himself, knees coming up to his chest and head falling onto his hands. He's sobbing like a baby, tucked up in a ball like a scared child. He's never cried so hard in his life and it's scary, as he struggles for breath and seems almost to lose control of his limbs.

He's never cried so hard in his life, because Clarke's never been dead before.

And it's not just that – it's the fact that she died thinking he hated her, died alone, died saving people who were his responsibility, too. Would she have survived, if he went to the island with her and they solved whatever problem held her back together? Would she have survived, if she knew how he felt about her? Would his love have given her the extra edge she needed to run faster?

He feels arms go around him, hears his sister shushing him softly. It's a strange situation – he used to hold her while she cried, and beg her to quieten down.

He does as she asks, though it's a struggle. It occurs to him that he must be scaring her, seeing as she's never watched him fall apart like this. That gives him the self-awareness to rein it in a little, suppress his sobs, and settle into quieter tears.

"What happened?" He asks, although the words come out garbled. "How do you know?"

"Raven got through to us on the laser comm." Octavia explains. "She told us everything that happened. The others are all safe and well. Clarke saved them." She repeats.

"She saved them." He echoes.

"Yeah. You should be proud of her."

He snorts out grief and tears and snot in a disgusting sob. That's a sweet sentiment on O's part, he supposes, but it's not a useful one. He doesn't want to be proud of Clarke's death.

He wants to be proud of her _life_.

…...

Clarke's alive.

She can barely believe it herself, some mornings. In fact, sometimes she even catches herself repeating the words under her breath, just to remind herself that they're true. And she's not just alive _now_ , either – she's genuinely beginning to believe she might be alive for the foreseeable future.

When she looks back at all the reasons she didn't expect to survive, during that horrendous moment in the desert, she has overcome most of them, now that she's found this miraculous green valley. She has food and water, fuel and shelter. Her nightblood is evidently protecting her – she feels physically fine.

The only problem that persists is the loneliness, the want of purpose. The more human and emotional aspect of survival. She knows she _can_ live, now, but she's still figuring out whether she wants to. She has no friends or family and no goals or aspirations.

Just a vague voice, in the back of her mind, suggesting that this second chance in a land of green might be her opportunity to practise being a better person. That maybe this is where Wanheda goes to die, and a new Clarke Griffin can break free.

…...

Bellamy returns often to the question of whether Clarke might have had more of an instinct for self-preservation if she knew how much he loved her. Surely, he thinks, she would have tried harder to save herself if she knew that he needed her to live? And that would make it his fault that she's dead, of course.

Maybe not. She always did seem to think that self-sacrifice was her calling in life.

He misses her. That's silly, of course, because he hadn't seen her in months even before he learnt she was dead. But now he knows he'll keep missing her _forever_ , and that hurts in a very different way. It really drives home how stupid he was, for being angry with her right before she died. He curses that damn emotional overreaction he had to her betrayal so often that it becomes almost a mantra, the music he listens to inside his head when he fails to fall asleep at night.

It's not exactly turning the page. It's far from looking forward, and is most definitely living in the past. But he cannot seem to help it.

He sighs. He's supposed to be tracking the levels of food they have stockpiled, but his heart is not in it. His heart is a couple of hundred miles away, burnt into ash at the foot of a comms tower.

He starts in shock when he realises Kane has walked in without him noticing.

"How are you doing?" Kane asks, in that voice he puts on when he's trying to be a bit paternal.

"How do you think I'm doing?" Bellamy asks. He appreciates Kane's concern, for the most part, but he's an adult who can face his own mistakes, thank you very much.

Kane doesn't take the bait. He simply sits on a nearby chair, frowning softly.

Bellamy shakes his head and gets back to his task. It looks like he's now going to be unproductive with an audience, rather than simply unproductive surrounded by his own thoughts.

"I let them float Callie." Kane mutters, abrupt, in a near-whisper quite unlike any voice Bellamy has ever heard from him before.

"Callie?" What on Earth is he talking about?

"Callie Cartwig. She was a close friend of Abby's, family friend of the Griffins and the Jahas. And – and she was my lover." He concludes, choked.

Bellamy simply stares in shocked silence.

Kane collects himself and continues. "We weren't married. I wouldn't say we were soulmates, exactly – it wasn't like what I have with Abby, or what you had with Clarke. But I loved her in a way, and I let them float her. I didn't have a veto of course. I wasn't the Chancellor. But I was on the council, I had influence. I could have tried harder to stop it."

"Why didn't you?"

"Treason. That's what she was accused of – it was all very quick, very hushed up. I didn't dare try to stop it because I was scared they'd think I was in on it. I saved my own skin, and I watched the council float a woman I loved."

Bellamy wants to snort dismissively, wants to say something cynical about the predictable moral of the story being that he is not the only guy who has ever got the woman he loved killed. But something about seeing his old mentor sat before him like this, vulnerable and hurting, breaks through the shield of bitterness he has been carting around since Clarke's death.

"It sucks, doesn't it?" Bellamy asks quietly.

Kane gives a hollow laugh. "That's one way of putting it. You never really get over it, Bellamy. It won't go away. But – you learn to cope with it. You grow, until the pain is smaller than you are. You make better choices, don't make the same mistakes again."

"And you turn the page." He provides, as much because he thinks Kane needs to hear it as because he needs to say it.

"You turn the page." Kane confirms, eyes sad but somehow proud, Bellamy thinks.

…...

The universe presents Clarke with a new sense of purpose rather abruptly, one morning, in the form of a small child and a bear trap. Hanging out with the child from hell is far from feeling loved, she muses, but it is certainly better than nothing. And at least caring for the girl gives her something to focus on, a reason to keep breathing.

More than that, it gives her a reason to continue with her quest to put the days of Wandheda behind her and discover a better Clarke. If she's going to raise a child, she ought to be more into nurturing life than destroying it, she's pretty sure.

She doesn't know what she's doing. She's pretty sure her mother or Bellamy would be more suited to this particular task. But maybe that's why the universe has thrown it in her lap, she wonders. Maybe this is an opportunity for her to discover new aspects to her personality, to learn and grow.

Now she's starting to sound like Jaha, with all his words about fate and destiny. That has her laughing her first true laugh in months.

She sighs, and picks up a roasted rabbit carcass. The only way she is ever going to learn how to take care of this girl is by getting on with it, she figures. She takes the rabbit and sets it down, before retreating to a cautious distance.

"Hey." She says, into the trees. "I guess you're still there. I thought maybe we could change it up a bit – how about I _give_ you food, rather than you taking it? How about we practise sharing?"

No response. Discouraged, but deciding she has plenty of time to persevere, she continues.

"OK, so here's a rabbit. I hope you like rabbit. I'm not much good at spear fishing yet – maybe you could teach me, as part of this _sharing_ idea?"

She looks up, sees the girl hovering on the edge of the trees. Offering a tentative smile, she gets to the real point of her message.

"I'm Clarke. I used to be Skaikru, but I'm not sure what I am now. I like drawing and playing chess. And – and I'm here on my own. What about you?"

The girl steps forward. She takes the food, and she doesn't sprint back to the treeline – rather, she crouches in place and starts gnawing at a rabbit leg. This is good, Clarke thinks. Determined not to startle her, she simply stays put and waits to see what happens.

The meal is half-gone before the child speaks.

" _Ai laik Madi_." She says.

Three little words. The best three words Clarke has heard since the death wave hits. But maybe that's not saying much, seeing as they are, of course, also the _only_ three words she has heard in that time beyond the voices in her own head.

…...

Bellamy has been avoiding Abby.

Of course he has – he's becoming increasingly convinced that he indirectly got her daughter killed, by abandoning her on that crucial journey to the island, and by failing to tell her what was going on in his heart while he had the chance. So it's only natural that he does not want to look the mourning mother in the eyes.

It's difficult to avoid her, though, when she spends so much time with Kane, and Kane in turn spends so much time with Bellamy and Octavia. It's difficult, too, because in a community of twelve hundred in a confined space, there is no avoiding anyone forever.

His luck runs out once and for all, today. He's alone in Octavia's office when Abby knocks at the door.

"Bellamy, hey."

"Abby." He 's still getting the hang of calling her that rather than Dr Griffin, if he's being honest.

"Look, I found this. I thought you might have more use for it – perhaps for the school if nothing else." She holds a book out towards him, a children's textbook about the Romans.

"Thanks. Yeah, that might be helpful." He's not sure when a chaotic school with three overworked teachers is going to get round to teaching grounders about the Roman empire, but he supposes it's the thought that counts.

"Great. So, listen – I was wondering if you and Octavia want to eat with me and Marcus tonight."

He frowns. Is there a polite way of rejecting that invitation? "Thanks, Abby, but we're fine. We plan to grab some food just the two of us then get back to the hydrofarm reports."

"That's exactly why I'm asking, Bellamy. You've both been working too hard."

He frowns harder. "We're OK, Abby. We don't need you and Kane to take care of us."

There's a heavy silence. Abby helps herself to a chair. Bellamy looks up, and finds that she is staring at him, hard. He finds, too, that there are the beginnings of tears in her eyes, and he curses himself for upsetting her. He didn't mean to do that – he just doesn't want her to feel obligated to go out of her way to look after the man who got her daughter killed.

Abby takes a deep breath, and speaks. "I'm not just doing this to take care of you two. I do care about both of you, obviously. But – I'm being selfish, too, Bellamy. You're – you're all I have left of her." She forces the words out, now crying in earnest.

Bellamy finds that his throat seems to be thick with tears, as well, when he replies. "No. I – I got her killed. I should have been there. I should have been with her. I let her down."

Abby smiles at him through her tears. "You're ridiculous sometimes, you know that? It's thanks to you that she survived as long as she did. How many times did you save her? I couldn't have asked for a better partner for her, and I mean that."

"We weren't -"

"You _were_. In all the ways that matter, you were. So are you going to stop running away and have a family supper tonight?"

He smiles a little despite himself. "Yeah. It sounds like we are."

…...

Clarke thinks she has worked out the logistics of raising a child. She can provide a healthy diet, adequate clothing, things like that. She can teach reading and writing, and survival skills, and the girl even takes well to some basic maths.

But Clarke has no idea how to teach the things that really matter. She's still at a loss as to how to raise her successfully on the personal and emotional front. She cannot invite over suitable company, when there are just the two of them here. She isn't sure how to model positive interactions and functional relationships, when they speak to no one else. And that's all very frustrating, because she wants to do better. She wants to raise this girl to be a lover of peace, not follow in the footsteps of the Commander of Death.

She takes a leaf out of Bellamy's book in the end. Of course she does – he may hate her so much he wouldn't even say goodbye when the world was burning, but she still thinks he's basically the best person she's ever known. So it is that she mimics as closely as she can the recipe by which he raised Octavia – storytelling and love.

She starts with the story of Octavia uniting the twelve clans so that a hundred from each could survive Praimfaya. That seems like a story of doing the right thing – or as close to the right thing as anyone can ever get, on the ground.

"But why did she save everyone?" Madi asks, confused. "You say it's a good thing but it's not the Shallow Valley way. We would save Shallow Valley first. That's what my _nomon_ always taught me – family come before strangers."

Clarke isn't sure how to answer that. "She thought that all people deserved a chance. That it was... unfair to give special treatment to her own kru. All humans are important."

Madi nods thoughtfully, trying to process that new worldview.

Clarke continues. "It was also because a man she loved had similar ideas. Lincoln. He cared about people regardless of clan. He was a good man."

"He's dead?" Madi asks.

"Yes. Yes, he died." Clarke swallows. Lincoln's death is one of the deaths that still weighs heavily on her. "And I think also it's because Octavia didn't think of Skaikru as being her true family. Lincoln was her family. Bellamy was her family. But – Skaikru were not always kind to her."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll explain that another day." That's Clarke ducking out, deciding she cannot face the thought of explaining the one child rule today.

Madi nods, thoughtful. "So you're saying all people are important? We should try to save everyone?"

"Exactly."

The only problem, Clarke thinks, is that she's been trying to save everyone for months – and look at where that has landed her.

…...

Bellamy isn't sure what he's supposed to do, in a world without Clarke. Sure, she wasn't actually present in his life for quite some weeks before he learnt she was dead. But it hits different, now that he knows he needs a plan for how to live the rest of his life without her.

He just doesn't know what the point of being Clarke's right hand man is, now that Clarke is dead. He's more or less his sister's right hand man as well, he supposes, but it's certainly not the same. She has Kane and Indra and Abby to support her, too, whereas he felt rather uniquely essential to Clarke.

Perhaps it's time to learn who he really wants to be.

He bites the bullet and goes to talk to Gaia. There's something he's been wondering about for a while, now, and he figures he might as well get on with _doing better today_ and all that.

"Bellamy. What brings you here?" She has a slightly nervous air, as if thinking he is here to relay orders on his sister's behalf, or some such thing.

"I want to talk about training the kids." He mutters, uncomfortable but trying to disguise it.

She looks even more nervous now. "I can assure you that -"

"No, I mean – I want to talk about _me_ helping to train the kids. I taught the hundred how to shoot and fight when we first landed. And Lincoln helped me teach some of the guards at Arkadia. I was hoping you'd let me help out – teaching them to fight, but also teaching them when not to fight." He has this vague sort of idea in mind, that he might teach them how to throw a punch and how to shoot a rifle, all while placing emphasis on some concept of integrity and the ideals of peace and negotiation.

Gaia gapes at him. "You'd be welcome to join me. But – surely you have more important things to do?"

"Is there anything more important than making sure the next generation is ready to face the world? Making sure they can defend themselves, but that they also know when to make peace?" That has her nodding in understanding, and he breathes a sigh of relief.

"I think we're going to get on very well, Bellamy." She tells him with a warm smile.

…...

There's a thought that's been nagging at Clarke, these last few months. It's a ridiculous thought, in many ways, but it persists all the same.

What if she could dig out the bunker?

She's already failed at that once, of course, when she stopped at Polis on that dispiriting journey that miraculously led her here to Shallow Valley. But she didn't have time to hang around and do the job properly, then, because she would have starved to death long before she uncovered the door if she approached the task stone by stone, obstacle by obstacle. She just burrowed into the chaos and hoped for the best.

She would have time to take a more measured approach, now. There is plentiful food in Shallow Valley, so she could stock up on a week or so worth of supplies at a time and work away at digging the bunker out. Then she could come home for a few days, restock her pantry, and go again.

The more she thinks about it, the more she grows convinced. This has to be the very definition of _doing better_ – giving her time to dig out the rest of the human race so that they can escape when the radiation levels are safe. Maybe she could even donate bone marrow, now that she knows the nightblood works, and get them all out of there sooner than they would otherwise have dreamed of.

No. She's getting ahead of herself. She doesn't even know if she will be able to dig down to the door, and she certainly doesn't know what Madi will make of the scheme. Madi is her world, now, and if the girl would rather stay here in Shallow Valley, Clarke will not force the issue.

She raises the topic one evening, as they sit together at the fire after supper.

"Madi. I have to ask you about something."

Madi nods, a curious look on her face.

"I'm wondering about going to Polis to see if I could uncover the door to the bunker my friends are in. It – it would take a while. We'd have to make lots of trips."

"I like trips." Madi offers brightly, as if this were some sweet picnic by the lake.

"These might not be very fun trips."

The child only shrugs. "If we can find your friends, that will make a fun trip."

Well, then. It seems like she has her answer.

…...

Bellamy is enjoying his new role helping to train Wonkru's children. It's fun, seeing as the kids are cheerful company for the most part, but it's also incredibly rewarding. It makes him feel like he's actually putting his urge to do better into action. If he keeps this up for the next four years, he thinks, he might almost pay off the guilt he still feels for what happened to Clarke.

He still has to help his sister to run things round here, as well. The challenge of balancing both his time and dedication between the two tasks has given him a newfound respect for the way Abby used to divide her attention between medicine and leadership. Right now, for instance, he has just finished a training session with the kids and is currently heading for his sister's office.

"Sorry I'm late." He greets her on his arrival. "Ethan wanted to ask me a question about Achilles."

Octavia smiles. "You're getting too attached to that kid."

"I think I'm getting attached to all of them." It's the truth – he's getting invested in the future of these children, just as he used to with the teenagers at the dropship.

She smiles ever wider. "It's good to see you happier, big brother. Teaching suits you."

He only makes a humming noise, because he's still not convinced he's allowed to be happy. He's known about Clarke's death for nearly a year, now, and he's pretty sure he hasn't smiled since. That's mostly because he misses her, of course, and because her death seems to have snatched away what little joy there was in his rather dispiriting life. But it's also because he's still blaming himself, no matter how many times Abby tells him it's not his fault.

Octavia's smile gives way to a considering sort of expression. That's happening increasingly often, of late – she's become a rather more thoughtful woman, since she found herself leading the human race.

"Take the night off. Go see Kane and watch an archived soccer game or something." She recommends.

He snorts. "Neither of us like soccer."

"I know. But what else is there to do round here in the evenings? My point is, I got this. Go take a break. And you know he and Abby would love to see you."

Well, now. When she puts it like that it's difficult to say no. He wouldn't take the evening off for his own sake, but now she's pointed out that his found family would want his company, it seems rude to decline.

Maybe they won't watch soccer. Maybe he'll get really brave and ask Kane more about Callie. Maybe if Abby's there, he could ask about Jake, too.

Perhaps it'll do all three of them good, to spend an evening remembering the people they've loved and lost. He's all for turning the page, and for doing better tomorrow, and all those noble sentiments. But he thinks there's no point at all in moving on, if moving on means forgetting altogether the people they've loved.

…...

Clarke isn't sure how to feel, the first morning they load the rover for an extended trip to Polis with the aim of digging out the bunker. Madi thinks that this will be a great project, and Clarke is glad for her naive optimism.

Clarke thinks it will be a thoroughly miserable project, but she embraces it all the same.

She realises that it will be painful, possibly even dangerous. She realises that she might not ever succeed. And she realises that, even if she does get the door uncovered, Bellamy will not fall into her arms and forgive her for locking a door in his sister's face and waving a gun in his.

But she might see her mother, at least, and her other friends. And she's clinging to the idea that she might be able to make amends for her mistakes by leading the human race home to Shallow Valley ahead of schedule.

Clarke gets to work as soon as they arrive, leaving Madi in the rover with a little reading and writing to keep her busy. She was right about it being a thoroughly miserable project, it turns out. It's grim work, heavy lifting under the hot sun. Some of the blocks are too big for her to lift with her bare hands, so she works around the problem, levering them out of the way or even occasionally winching them with the rover. Even the smaller chunks of concrete are troublesome in their own way – they cut at her hands, leave her skin rubbed raw.

It's worth it. It's so utterly and completely worth it, for the feeling that she is making tangible progress towards a worthwhile goal. And somehow, every broken fingernail feels like a kind of penance, each new burst of pain reminding her that she's sweating and slogging to achieve a good thing, here.

She knows in her heart of hearts that such an attitude is not particularly healthy. Pain is not a positive coping mechanism – as a medical apprentice, she's familiar with that idea. But on a visceral level it works, makes her feel better about herself, and helps her to bid goodbye to Wanheda once and for all.

They stay two weeks, that first trip. By the end of it, Clarke has barely shifted a tenth of what she needs to move to reach the door.

But she feels more optimistic than she has in years.

…...

The rubble is shifting again. Bellamy can hear it, even while he tries to teach a wrestling class in the rotunda. It's a bit annoying, really, but it's also somewhat strange. The Earth above them was quiet, for the most part, that first year – or at least, it was quiet after the initial noise of the rubble settling. But these last few months it's been quite loud, on and off, in strange bursts of a couple of weeks at a time.

He wonders if it's a real pattern, or if he's just imagining things. He doesn't see how it can be a regular pattern, now he comes to think about it. Probably there are animals of some kind that survived the radiation digging around up there, or else a second wave of fire burning the buildings further. He really ought to stop dwelling on it and get back to his day job.

"Bellamy? Do you know what's happening up there?" Ethan asks, his tone somewhere between affectionate and respectful.

"No one knows exactly." He admits, because he thinks it's important to be honest with the children. He thinks that's part of doing better. "But the engineers tell us that the death wave will have destroyed most of the city, and so the buildings will fall down as rubble. I guess some of them are still collapsing now."

"How are we going to live up there if the buildings are gone? How are we going to get out of here if they've collapsed on top of us?" Those are both excellent questions, Bellamy thinks. And he decides that honesty with children only stretches so far – that probably letting slip they might be stuck here forever is not a wise move.

"Don't you worry about that, Ethan. You know Jaha is leading the engineering team and he knows everything, doesn't he? And hasn't Octavia done a great job of saving us so far?"

"And you'll take care of us, Bellamy." The child insists, with a depth of conviction that Bellamy decides is at least a little moving.

"Yeah. Of course I will."

He just wishes he knew what on Earth was going on above his head.

…...

It takes a long time to shift a tower's worth of rubble single-handed.

Clarke knew that would be the case before she started, of course, but she and Madi have been making these trips for over a year, now, and the door is still not in sight. It's close, though. She knows that she's finally nearing her goal, and that it will only take a couple more trips before she makes it through.

"What do you think it will be like, when we get in there?" Madi asks, tonight, as they sit by their campfire in the ruins of the city.

Clarke chooses not to mention that getting in there is still not guaranteed, and instead tries for a cheerful answer. "I think my mum will be really excited to meet you."

"She'll be like my grandma." Madi offers, and that has Clarke welling up slightly. The child has never put their family relationship in such stark terms before.

"Yeah, if you want her to be. And Marcus is a good man, and he'll look out for you, too."

"And Bellamy will be like my dad, when he's finished being angry with you." Clarke gapes, shocked. She's said nothing of the kind – she wouldn't like to mislead Madi about the nature of their relationship.

"It's not like that, Madi."

"I think it is." The child says, with all the wisdom of an eight year old. "You've told me lots of stories about how close you two used to be and how much you cared about each other. Just because you argued near Praimfaya doesn't change that. You told me other stories where you argued but then forgave each other."

Clarke doesn't argue with that. She doesn't argue because Madi has based her flawed conclusion on a foundation of truth, it turns out.

But that's not the only reason she doesn't argue. Just for now, just for one evening of her life, it's kind of lovely to indulge in a moment of weakness and pretend that Madi's misapprehension is the truth.

…...

Bellamy is about ready to burst that door open himself and scream at the shifting rubble to be still.

It's infuriating. It's simply infuriating. He doesn't understand how anyone can possibly concentrate on their tasks with that racket overhead.

To be fair, his sister's office and the rotunda are the places where the noise is worst, and he is the only person in this bunker who spends quite so much of his time split between those two locations. Probably he should just take a deep breath and calm down.

Yeah, he's never been much good at that.

He's found himself cursing the noise a lot recently as a kind of scapegoat for the real sources of stress in his life. There's an issue with the soybean crop, which is threatening to leave them without a protein source for up to a year. It goes without saying that this is about as bad as news gets, in an underground bunker. They're in serious danger of dying from slow starvation.

He just doesn't know what to do about it. He's heard some of Octavia's advisers suggest executing their few prisoners and using them as a protein source. No – he shouldn't tiptoe around it like that.

He's heard some of her advisers suggest cannibalism.

Needless to say, he's not a fan of that approach. He's trying to do better, and he's pretty sure that executing people for minor crimes like petty theft is not doing better. This is not the Ark, and he wants it to stay that way. And then of course there's the question of eating human flesh – he knows plenty of people, Kane included, would refuse to go down that path. He thinks he might well refuse it himself, if it came down to it.

But letting twelve hundred people starve to death doesn't sound much like _doing better_ , either.

…...

Clarke thought that the difficult part was over. She's uncovered the door, and now she has only to knock and wait to be let in. That should be straightforward, right?

She's been knocking for seven hours.

She left Madi sitting safely in the rover, and she's glad of that, at least. That keeps her safe, and it also means that the girl does not have to watch as Clarke starts to feel tears rolling down her cheeks at her own pathetic, hopeless situation.

After over a year of digging, she still cannot get the damn door open.

She can't give up, though. She didn't do all this just to fail at the last moment.

She brushes aside her tears and keeps on knocking.

…...

Bellamy doesn't know what he hopes to achieve by inspecting the failed soybean crop. He knows nothing about agriculture – all he knows is fighting, and survival, and a few anecdotes about heroes. But he can't just sit in his sister's office and do nothing.

Octavia is due to make a decision about the prisoners tomorrow. Abby has calculated that it is about as late as they can leave the final choice before people start to show symptoms of malnutrition.

He just can't believe it's come to this. He remembers being so proud of his sister and so hopeful, when she declared that they would all share this place in peace. He remembers thinking, too, that he'd have five years to fall out of love with Clarke – and look how that turned out.

He misses Clarke most of all, now that the going is tough and they're on the precipice of making an impossible choice that will either save or kill the human race. He's pretty sure his sister will choose to execute the prisoners, and he supposes that's probably the right move. It's better than everyone dying. But he's starting to think that he might choose not to eat, when it comes to it. He might volunteer to die for the greater good, like those people he indirectly culled on the Ark. That might bring things full circle, and allow him finally to make amends.

He might meet Clarke again, might find her on the other side.

He can see why Cooper is despairing, as he looks around the hydrofarm. The soybeans are, in his sophisticated and educated opinion, absolutely screwed. Even he can see that they're not -

"Bellamy!" His sister's urgent voice interrupts his train of thought.

He looks up, and there's Octavia, sprinting through the hydrofarm, a smile splitting her cheeks and her hair blown out behind her by the speed with which she runs.

What the hell is going on?

"O?"

"Bellamy! Clarke's here. She's alive. She'll be upstairs any moment if you want to go -"

"This isn't real." He cuts her off, because he cannot bear to listen for a moment longer. "Clarke's dead, O. She's dead. She's been dead for years now. You heard Raven -"

"It is real." Octavia tells him, grasping at his hands. "I've just seen her myself. The nightblood worked, Bell. She's alive."

"She's alive?"

"She's alive."

He doesn't wait for her to repeat it again. He simply turns for the door and runs.

…...

Clarke doesn't know what to expect from her reunion with Bellamy. She got a hearty hug from Octavia, a good deal of back-slapping from Miller, and a lot of happy tears from her mother. And now she's fetched Madi, and is heading back down to Octavia's office to wait for Bellamy. According to his sister, he's going to be desperate to see her, but that doesn't sound much like the Bellamy she left behind, that last day before Praimfaya.

She doesn't make it back to Octavia's office. She and Madi are half way down the walkway that circles the rotunda when Bellamy bursts in, breathless and visibly confused, and catches sight of them.

"Clarke! It's really you!"

She just has time to process that he sounds somewhat choked. Then the next thing she knows, he has sprinted the last few metres between them and engulfed her in a very enthusiastic hug.

"You're alive." He's sobbing, somewhere near her ear. "You're alive. My god, Clarke. You're _here_."

He stops talking, then, and just rocks her a little, still weeping quietly.

She has to admit this is not the reunion she was expecting. She's not moaning, of course, because Bellamy hugs are basically her favourite thing about life on Earth. But he doesn't seem to be angry with her in the slightest, which comes as a surprise. The most shocking thing of all, though, is all this weeping. She's seen Bellamy emotional before, once or twice, but never outright falling apart like this.

It seems like maybe her not being dead is rather big news for him, or something.

"I'm OK." She whispers, because she feels like she ought to contribute something here beyond just holding him tight. "I'm _well_ , even. It's so good to see you."

He pulls back at last and looks her right in the eyes. "It's good to see you, too. I – we thought you were dead. Raven said -"

"You've heard from Raven?"

"Yeah. I talk to her every couple of days. They're all fine."

"Thank goodness." She grins. This has been more good news in one day than she had any right to expect.

Then it gets even better.

"I'm so sorry, Clarke. I'm sorry about that last day, the way I wouldn't come with you and then I missed your call -"

"I forgive you." She interrupts what sounded like the beginning of a rambling bout of self-loathing. "It's OK, Bellamy. We're both here now, and that's all that matters to me."

He nods, smiling at her widely. "I guess I should probably have asked who this is sooner?" He asks, gesturing to Madi, who's hovering a couple of feet back from the site of the hug.

Clarke beckons her forward. "This is Madi. She's a nightblood – we found each other just after the death wave and we've been together since then."

"Clarke's my mum." Madi declares, firm, almost as if daring Bellamy to argue.

Clarke tries not to expire from sheer joy on the spot, but it's a challenge. Madi's never outright said it like that – she's talked about them being family, or Clarke being _like_ her mother, but this is new territory.

This day seems to have contained altogether more happiness than she deserves.

She swallows back her emotions, and reaches to pull her daughter into a hug. "Yeah. Madi's my daughter, and we've done OK together in Shallow Valley, haven't we?"

Madi nods, even as Bellamy asks his next question. "Shallow Valley?"

"We've been living there – it wasn't destroyed by the death wave."

That has him nodding, frowning a little. Clarke wonders what happens now – she needs to talk to Octavia about a number of things, but she doesn't exactly want to cut short her reunion with Bellamy.

They hug again. That's what happens now, Bellamy seems to have decided. He reaches for her, pulls her tight against his chest. It even feels like he might be combing his fingers through her hair, but that's probably silly, she decides. She must just be imagining things.

At length, he pulls away again, wearing a slightly sheepish smile.

"I need to talk to your sister for a bit." Clarke explains, somewhat apologetic. "She said there was a crisis with your protein supply, and I can help with that because I can hunt. And – yeah – there's a couple of other things I want to talk to her about."

He nods. "But we can catch up later, right? You're not – not going anywhere?"

"Not right away, no. You're not about to lose me again." She explains, realising that's what he's really asking.

"Good. Because I _never_ want to lose you again."

…...

Bellamy tries to be productive after that. Really he does. But there doesn't seem any point in inspecting the soybean crop now that Clarke is here to save them all yet again, and he just cannot focus on anything when he is bubbling over with joy and excitement at Clarke's miraculous survival.

He wonders whether he ought to get on with telling her he's in love with her. Or will that seem a bit too quick after they've been reunited? And anyway, Madi is obviously her priority now, and he wouldn't want her to think he was trying to interfere with that.

No. None of this matters. All that matters is that she's alive and well and here.

Octavia finds him failing to take inventory of the weapons room, late that afternoon.

"What are you doing here?" She asks, confused. "This can wait. I just sent Clarke to your room."

"You did?" That means he's allowed to stop pretending to work and go find her, right?

"Yeah. You'll want to hurry, she's going to med bay to give her bone marrow samples in an hour or so."

That stops him in his tracks, half way to the door. "Bone marrow?"

Octavia's looking at him like he's lost his mind. "Yeah. Bone marrow. You know, so we can make everyone nightbloods? So we can all go out topside sooner? Surely you realised -"

He doesn't stop to hear how that sentence ends. He runs straight out the door, heading for his room.

Clarke is out of her mind if she thinks he's going to stand by and watch her be drilled dry of bone marrow to save all these people. It's infuriating – she's been back two hours and already she's trying to sacrifice herself for them all over again. It wouldn't even work, he seethes internally, because there's no way all of Wonkru are going to accept a nightblood injection when they think it ought to be such a sacred trait.

She's in his room when he arrives, sitting on his bed and leafing through the book that lives on his bedside table. It makes for a rather domestic scene that has something stirring deep in his belly, but he pushes that away and starts pacing before her. She doesn't seem to have Madi with her, but he files that away for consideration another time. He's too angry to worry about her childcare arrangements right now.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Clarke?"

She frowns. "What are you talking about?"

"O told me that you're heading straight to med bay to give up your bone marrow. I won't let you do that, Clarke. I know you think you always have to give up everything, but I am not going to sit here and watch you bleed yourself dry for these people -"

"Actually it's bone marrow, not blood." She corrects him smartly.

"Clarke -"

"Bellamy. Sit down and let me explain."

He does, because she looks annoyed with him, and he does remember deciding he was done with anger.

She smiles thinly and continues. "Thanks. Your sister was right – I am heading to med bay to give some bone marrow. But I'm going to give a very small sample that my body can easily handle. Just enough for two doses of treatment, my mum figures. And then those two people can give two more doses, and so on. We'll do it gradually to give Wonkru time to adjust to the idea of 'artificial' nightblood. Gaia's going to speak to them all."

"So you'll be safe?" He needs to be certain on that.

"Completely safe. My mum's a good doctor, Bellamy. And she's setting up right now, with Madi running circles round her no doubt."

He nods. He supposes he might have overreacted there. In his defence, bone marrow has always been a touchy subject for him. He remembers losing Fox at Mount Weather, who he promised to protect. And more than that – he thinks the whole experience of Mount Weather will be forever branded on his memory, as the first real taste he had of facing utter fear all alone.

"Sorry." He mutters, feeling a bit stupid now that he's cooling down. "I guess I just – I panicked. I thought you were _dead_ , and then the minute you show up my sister tells me you're giving up even _more_ for the human race? Do you ever just take a break?" He asks, trying for one of those little desperate jokes she used to like.

She rewards him with a smile. "I was trying to, right now. I came here to hang out with you until I'm needed in med bay."

"Sorry I ruined that."

"It's OK. We still have some time."

He nods. "So you're really just giving a couple of doses?"

"Yeah. One for you and one for your sister, I figured."

He gapes, confused. "Me?" Why would he be top of her list? He parted from her in anger, and has not even begun to make that up to her yet. In fact, he just yelled at her only seconds ago into the bargain. Why would she not want to make her mother the priority?

"Yeah. One of them had to go to your sister because she's the leader here. And I asked for you for the other one because I figure I'm going to need a decent hunting partner tomorrow." She says, staring at her hands, something in her tone he cannot quite read.

"Tomorrow?" He's fed up of feeling like he's on the back foot in this conversation, but it seems that's just the way it is.

"Yeah. If Wonkru are so short of protein I figure we're going to need to catch plenty. And if I'm going to spend the whole day out hunting with someone I guess I choose you. I thought it might be fun to do it together." She swallows loudly. "I missed you, these last couple of years."

He abandons his dignity and reaches an arm around her shoulders. He really does seem to have hugged her a lot, since she showed up this afternoon, but he supposes that's not necessarily a problem. She doesn't seem to be objecting, and as long as she's happy, that's all that matters to him.

"I missed you too." He mutters, past the lump in his throat. "A hunting trip together tomorrow sounds great. Your mum thinks the nightblood will be protecting me well enough by then?"

"Yeah. It only take a couple of hours to work. Luna and I got sick when we were first exposed to the radiation, but the level is lower out there now. You should be OK just to walk out there with the nightblood. And if you're not, I guess I'll take care of you."

For a moment, he seriously finds himself thinking that vomiting sticky black blood might not be so bad if he had Clarke to wipe his brow. But then he catches onto what she just said.

"You got sick?" He asks, somehow concerned even though he knows she's fine now.

"Yeah." She swallows. "Do you want me to tell you about it? It's not – I guess it's a pretty grim story."

"I want to hear it, if you can tell me. I want to know everything that's happened to you these last two years."

He still has his arm around her shoulders as she tells the story. In fact, she leans into him a little further, her head resting against his chest. He wonders if this is what happiness feels like.

…...

Clarke finds herself remembering what happiness feels like, as the evening draws on. She gives her bone marrow without difficulty, and her mother is such an expert doctor that the site the sample was taken from barely feels sore. And when the procedure is done, and she is waiting for Bellamy and Octavia to have their treatment, she goes to the laser comm to tell her friends in space that she's alive and introduce them to Madi.

There follows a lovely evening together with the people she loves the most, and the people they in turn love the most. They all crowd into Octavia's office and sit on the chairs and the desk – even the floor. There's Miller and Jackson, Abby and Kane, Jaha and Ethan, Gaia and Indra, Octavia and Bellamy, as well as Madi and Clarke herself. All in all, it makes for a pretty festive atmosphere.

Clarke doesn't know Ethan at all well – she knows only that his father was not on the list, and that Jaha has more or less raised the boy. It becomes evident fairly early on that Bellamy has played a part in his upbringing, too, and that Ethan positively adores him.

"He seems a sweet kid." She observes to Bellamy, as she takes a seat at his side on a couch and watches Ethan introduce himself to Madi under Jaha's careful supervision.

"Yeah. I think he is – as much as any kid gets to be _sweet_ , on Earth."

She gives a wry smile. "You're right, there."

"Madi's great." He offers, eyes fixed on the two children as they talk.

"Yeah, she's what kept me going all this time. That and thinking of seeing my mum again." She thinks she sees his face fall a little at that, but it's hard to tell. And anyway, she's out of practice at reading him – she didn't ought to put much faith in her impressions, she thinks.

Octavia walks over then and deposits herself on the arm of the couch at Bellamy's side. "Are you two excited for your hunting trip?" She asks with an easy smile. It's good to see her smiling, Clarke thinks. She wasn't sure that would happen again, after Lincoln's death.

"Yeah." Bellamy says, visibly brightening. "It'll be good to get out of here. And to hang out with you and Madi." He adds, nudging Clarke a little with his elbow.

"Madi's not coming. I've asked my mum to watch her. They want to get to know each other better and Madi won't be much help hunting." Clarke explains.

"I wish I could join you." Octavia sounds rather wistful.

Clarke gives a gentle smile. "You know you have to stay here for now. Sometimes that's what leadership is all about – staying put when your heart would rather be somewhere else." She throws a glance at Bellamy as she speaks, wonders whether he can hear that she's partly referring to that time she stayed in Polis even as he begged her to come home.

Octavia nods. "You're right. I know you're right. Just – say hello to the outside for me, will you?"

"You used to ask me that when you were a kid." Bellamy remembers, giving his sister a sympathetic look.

Clarke watches Octavia paste on a smile which is almost convincing. "This isn't as bad as all that. I know we'll all be out topside soon. And in the meantime Clarke's back and you're happy, big brother, and that's good enough for me."

When she says it like that, Clarke muses, it almost sounds like she's trying to imply a link between the two. It's as if she's saying Clarke's presence and Bellamy's happiness are directly related, perhaps.

She rather likes that idea.

…...

Bellamy meets Clarke bright and early the following morning, and they head to the rover together. They've got to get going if they are to catch enough prey to relieve the protein crisis between the two of them.

Clarke insists on driving and he doesn't argue. If that's the way things are now, then that's fine by him. He supposes he'll get back to the familiar territory of arguing with her just as soon as it's really sunk in that she's alive, but for now he's too busy counting his blessings to bicker with her.

"Let me know if you start to feel ill." Clarke says, for perhaps the fourth time inside of the last hour, as they leave Polis behind once and for all. "We can always turn back if you get sick."

"We're not turning back, Clarke. People would starve."

"I'm not staying out here if it's going to make you sick." She repeats, firm.

He snorts a little. He's beginning to get the hang of this now – the human race is her priority, unless his wellbeing interrupts. He didn't see that, back before Praimfaya when she couldn't shoot him to keep the door locked, but it's starting to make sense to him today.

"I'm not sick, so it's fine." He concludes, in the end.

She nods, smiling softly, eyes fixed on the track ahead. He could sit and watch her like this all day. He doesn't mean that in a creepy way – he's just overjoyed at the fact she's alive, and every time he looks at her he's filled with happiness all over again. It's a lot to process, but in the best possible way.

He decides he can't sit and watch her all day, though, because there are various other things he wants to say to her. Somewhere on that list is the fact he's head over heels in love with her, but he supposes he ought to start with a more thorough apology, first.

He swallows deeply and gathers his courage.

"Clarke. I need to apologise properly. I feel like I didn't really get chance to do that, in the excitement of you and Madi arriving yesterday. So, yeah – I'm so sorry for letting you down, before the death wave. I should have stuck with you. You're important to me and I just left you to -"

"Bellamy. Stop." She interrupts. He's a bit annoyed with that, really. He was just getting into his flow there and it seems odd, to his mind, that she would let him start saying his piece then cut him off half way through.

Then he risks a glance at her face and sees that she's fighting back tears.

She continues, voice rough and a little shaky. "I don't need to hear it. I forgive you – I'm not even sure there's anything to forgive. I'm sorry for what I did that day, too. But I don't want us to sit here and talk about that. I want us to move on and look to the future. Let's hunt some deer and give nightblood to the human race and make the world better. Let's not sit here and dwell on mistakes we made years ago."

He's not sure about that. He's not sure he wants to move on so quickly – he kind of wants to stew in it long enough to talk it out more thoroughly. He has two years of guilt to exorcise, and he doesn't see how he'll ever get a chance to work through it if he doesn't throw a detailed apology at Clarke's feet.

But he doesn't want to upset her, and she does look near tears.

"I forgive you, too." He tells her firmly. That seems like a start. "I don't know how easy I'll find it to just move on. I'm still trying to process how I felt when I thought you were dead, I guess."

"Tell me about that. Instead of an apology I don't need, tell me what's really been going on with you." She invites him.

"You sure about that?" He asks, half way to stunned. "You don't know what you're asking for. It's not pretty."

"I don't want it to be _pretty_. I want it to be honest. And I want us both to be able to move on from this." She tells him with conviction.

"OK then. Let's start with the moment I decided it was my fault you were dead."

She doesn't bat an eyelid. Even while she keeps driving, she reaches out to place a hand on his thigh, calm and steady and utterly present. Offering absolute support, just as she has always done.

It's no wonder he never did manage to fall out of love with her, he decides, as he starts to tell her the story.

…...

They've had a successful day hunting. Clarke is proud of the dozen assorted deer and boar carcasses they have loaded into the back of the rover. It's not a huge amount, considering they are trying to feed the entire bunker, but it's a start. And with every nightblood giving enough bone marrow to convert two more, they will have larger hunting parties in the coming days.

The light is beginning to fade, now, and they need to head back to Polis before long. But she wants to take a moment to stop by the house she shares with Madi and collect a couple of personal items. She misses this place already, even though she's only been gone a week or so, and she doesn't know how long it might be until they move back here for good.

"Can I come with you?" Bellamy asks, when Clarke explains her intention to visit the house briefly.

"Sure. Come on. This way."

She feels a little odd, inviting Bellamy into her home. This is the place she lived without him – more specifically, it's the place she lived when she thought he hated her, when she thought they might never fix their relationship. And yet now they've been reunited barely twenty-four hours and it seems they are already the firmest of friends once more.

And now he's in her living room, taking in the sketches pinned to the walls.

That makes a self-conscious blush rise in her cheeks. She never realised before quite how many of the drawings here were of Bellamy. She supposes it's not surprising – her guilty conscience and the way she missed him conspiring to have her draw him so often. But all the same, she feels rather foolish, now, as he stares at the many depictions of his own face.

"So you've done a lot of drawing, these last couple of years." He observes, tone neutral.

"Yeah. Madi liked to look at my drawings and hear the stories that went with them. It was kind of how I taught her about the world, I guess, as well as introducing her to everyone she couldn't meet yet." She reaches for a sketchbook and holds it out to him. "Here. Sometimes we wrote the stories down, as well."

The book she has given him is their story of Praimfaya. It starts with the moment ALIE warned her about the coming crisis, and runs right up to the moment she watched her friends take off for space in the rocket, while she was still on the tower. She's had to edit it a little here and there, of course, removing a few of the most gruesome details. But for the most part she's left it as is – after all, Madi's mother died of radiation poisoning in the young girl's arms, so it hardly seems likely that the odd fight scene is going to be the most distressing occurrence of her life.

Bellamy flips through the book in taut silence for several long minutes. Clarke, meanwhile, is bustling round the house, shoving the few things she wanted to collect into a pack. But at last her task is done, and it's time to leave, and Bellamy is still standing where she left him, gazing at the book.

"You told her about the list." He whispers, barely audible, eyes fixed on the page before him.

"Yeah. I did." She swallows thickly. "That's a pretty important life lesson, isn't it? Surround yourself with people who support you through the tough times. Show – show people you care about them before it's too late."

He nods heavily. He opens his mouth, then closes it again. He blinks at the book a few seconds longer, then shuts it with painstaking care.

"Could I keep this?" He asks, voice hoarse.

She stares at him, shocked. He wants to keep it? He's not freaked out by all these drawings memorialising their odd friendship? He wants to _keep_ one of the books she made to tell their story?

He suddenly starts shaking his head, panicked, and she gathers that she has been silent too long. "Sorry, silly question. Forget I asked. It's yours, of course, I couldn't -"

"Keep it. It's as much yours as mine, isn't it? It's _our_ story."

She heads for the rover before she can do something really silly like blurt that she thinks she must still be in love with him. She figures that can only make things awkward, when they've been apart so long, and are still getting to know each other once more. And anyway, she's not good at talking about love.

He follows her to the rover readily enough, and gets into his seat without saying anything else frightening about lists or caring or memory books. But he does hug the book close to his chest, the whole journey home, and every so often she risks glancing at him in the fading light and she could swear he seems to be staring at her, every damn time.

…...

Bellamy is frustrated with himself in the days that follow. He should have realised that he wasn't going to get to spend time with Clarke alone again for quite some time. Now that a few more people have had the nightblood treatment, there are always more than the two of them in their hunting party. And he loves Miller to pieces, really he does, but he'd give anything in the world right now to have his old friend stop following him and Clarke around each day.

It's just as bad in the evenings. He spends all his free time with Clarke – to be honest, he spends all his time with her full stop – but each evening as they sit around with their friends and family, there is always someone else getting in the way of him spilling his heart to her.

In short, he should have told her he loved her, that first hunting trip they took together.

He put it off then because it felt too soon, and because he was worried that she might not feel the same way after so long apart and after all his mistakes. But now she's looking at him with soft eyes, as she sits in the far corner of Octavia's office with Madi at her side, and he's really beginning to suspect that he might be an even bigger idiot than he used to think he was.

As if she has heard his thoughts – or perhaps read something in his gaze – she beckons him over there.

Well, now. He's not going to turn down an invitation to chat to Clarke or get to know Madi better.

He crosses the room, and squeezes himself into the remaining space on the couch at her side. It's not a big space, so he has to sit very close to her, but he's hardly complaining.

"My mum has just spent ten minutes telling me how great your training sessions with the kids are." Clarke informs him when he arrives. "I found that a little strange, seeing as she's an adult with no young kids. Why does she know anything about it?"

"I guess Gaia said something." He suggests, somewhat uncomfortable with the implicit compliment.

"Ethan thinks they're great too." Madi pipes up. "He's always telling me I should join. He says that lessons with you are like learning how to be a hero. You learn how to fight and when not to fight."

All at once, he finds a smile is splitting his face. "That's what I wanted." He explains, a little choked. "That's – yeah – that's the aim. I guess it's good that Ethan thinks it's going OK."

"He thinks it's going great." Madi confirms, with all the cheerful innocence of a child.

"What do you think, Bellamy? Room for one more? I know you've not been teaching much recently with our hunting trips, but when you get started again...?" Clarke asks, with a gesture to Madi.

"Yeah, of course. Madi would be welcome."

"Really?" The girl asks, excited. "You can teach me how to be a hero like you?"

That's the moment that Bellamy learns quite how fetching Clarke looks with a deep blush staining her cheeks.

…...

Clarke is puzzled by the way the family dynamics have changed in her absence. Not in a bad way – she's delighted that all the people she loves seem to have decided they love each other, too. But it's difficult to keep up with the way things have shifted. Her own mother seems to know Bellamy better than she knows her, these days, and that's a little odd. And then between Jackson being an old friend of Abby's and Miller being a close friend of Bellamy's, they keep showing up to family dinners, too. Indra is naturally still close to Octavia and Kane, and Gaia and Bellamy are colleagues now, so they often join the party as well.

She's not complaining. They're all good people.

The clearest thing of all, though, is that Kane seems to have appointed himself as a father figure to the Blake siblings. Tonight, for example, Clarke is trying to help her mother in med bay with a number of nightblood treatments, and Kane has invited himself in to rant about Octavia's latest decision.

"She's trying to put herself on the list to give another marrow donation, Abby. That wasn't the plan. The plan was that everyone gives two each."

"It's a couple of weeks since she gave hers. She's good to go again."

"That's not the point, Abby. She has responsibilities. She ought to be running things, not sacrificing her bone marrow all the time."

That's when Clarke steps in. "Kane. We've all been leaders in our time, haven't we? And all of us have given a lot of ourselves to that role. Octavia's an adult now, and she can make her own choices. If she chooses to donate more marrow, and my mum says it's safe, then that's that."

"But she's only -"

"Young. I know. And I know you feel protective of her." Clarke swallows. "I remember when I was in that situation, OK? I remember being a young woman in charge, and my mum and you and even Jaha trying to make my decisions for me. Let this one go. And know that she'll respect what you have to say next time you challenge her on something that actually matters."

She hears Kane swallow loudly. "You've all grown up, haven't you? All you children we sent to the ground."

She nods.

"You're right. You know how she feels better than any of us." He pauses, looks between Clarke and Abby with concern in his eyes. "Don't be here all night, you two. Bellamy wants us all to watch a soccer game before bed."

She frowns, confused. "Bellamy doesn't like soccer."

That has Kane laughing, the tense mood of their earlier conversation broken. "No, he doesn't. But that's what we do in the evenings."

…...

Bellamy finally gets his lucky break a week later. It feels like it's been a long time coming, but at last he and Clarke are alone together, trudging side by side through the woods as they head back to the rover at the end of a hunting trip.

He takes his chance and starts to speak. "Clarke. There's something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you sooner and spent these last couple of years regretting that I -"

"Hey, no regrets, remember?" She interrupts to chastise him affectionately, reaching out to squeeze his hand for good measure. "We said we were moving on. And you should try to tell me if you're feeling guilty, not stew in it."

He loves her, but he really would like her to stop talking. "Please can you not interrupt me, Clarke?"

She nods, but she looks confused and a little hurt. Damn it. This is really not going to plan.

He perseveres. "So I've been wanting to tell you for a long time that – that I love you. I'm in love with you, Clarke." He gets the words out, looks at her expectantly.

Her mouth works as she gulps a little at thin air. Is that a good sign? He's not sure. His heart starts to quake in his chest.

Then she begins to speak, and his heart simply plummets to his heels. "Bellamy. I – I don't know -"

"What's taking you two so long?" All at once, Miller is asking the question as he bursts out of the undergrowth in front of them. "Come on, rover's ready to go. We need to get supper back to Polis."

"Can we have a moment, Miller?" Clarke asks sweetly.

No. Bellamy does not want a moment. He does not want to stand here and listen to the rest of a sentence that sounded distinctly like Clarke letting him down gently.

He makes haste to follow his old friend to the rover.

…...

Clarke loves Nathan Miller. Really she does – she has already established that he seems to have joined her extended family, these days. But right now she would gladly throttle him and throw the body over a cliff.

She finds it difficult to speak about love. She has done ever since those first few horrific months on Earth when she lost so many people she loved, and began to think that her love was some kind of a curse. So there she was, just now, trying to scrape together the words to tell Bellamy that she loves him, and damn Miller had to come along and interrupt.

Bellamy looks pretty wretched now, she thinks, as they walk back to the rover. She wonders about trying to cheer him up with some coded message about _feeling the same way_ , but that doesn't do justice to her feelings, she's pretty sure.

Within moments, they arrive at the rover and prepare to leave.

"Bellamy's riding shotgun." She announces, before anyone can argue.

That's met with some odd looks. Now she comes to think about it, she can kind of understand why – she did yell it a little violently, for such a simple statement. That former Azgeda warrior who speaks only in grunts is looking at her like she's lost her mind, and Miller is looking at her like she's just stated the obvious. Indra's smirking slightly, and that's a facial expression Clarke never expected to see the fearsome warrior wear.

Never mind. She ignores them, and hops in the rover.

Bellamy opens his mouth to start objecting. "I don't -"

"You're riding shotgun." She repeats, firm. "Get in."

He does get in, frowning at her deeply. The others hop in the back, and she starts to drive. She counts to about twenty, gives the folks in the back of the rover a chance to start a loud conversation.

And then she turns her attention back to the matter at hand.

"I need you to know I feel the same way." She sucks in a deep breath. "I love you. Sorry, I'm not good at saying it. But that's what I was trying to tell you, before we got interrupted. I'm sorry – I guess the front of a rover isn't the most romantic time to tell you that." She offers, casting a quick glance at Bellamy as she keeps driving. He's smiling a wide smile, and it looks good on him, she decides.

Most things look good on him, to be fair.

"Is it any less romantic than a forest and an interruption from Miller?" He asks, tone light. "Thanks, Clarke. I was – erm – I was starting to worry, there."

"I know." She reaches out to squeeze his hand. "I don't know why. I'm pretty sure every remaining member of the human race knows I'm in love with you."

She has to reclaim her hand to drive, but he rests a hand on her thigh in turn. "I guess I wasn't sure I was allowed to be this happy, you know? I still don't feel like I deserve it."

"You deserve it. _We_ deserve it. After everything we've done for other people, I'm pretty sure we do." She surprises herself by saying the words, and surprises herself even more by meaning them. She really has done a decent job of bidding goodbye to Wanheda, these last couple of years.

He makes an agreeing sort of noise, and squeezes her thigh affectionately. And then they stay like that for the rest of the drive back to Polis, and it's kind of beautiful, Clarke decides. Sure, there are no big fireworks to accompany this confession of love, because they're in a rover full of wild boar and hunters. And when they get to the bunker, there will be friends and family and Madi all around, and she knows it will be a while before they get any time alone to explore their loving relationship further.

But Bellamy loves her, and the bottom line is that this is more than enough.

…...

Bellamy is pretty sure the last week has been the happiest of life. He loves Clarke, and Clarke loves him, and before long their people will be ready to start moving to Shallow Valley. Life doesn't get better than that, in his experience.

It's been frustrating, too, in some ways. It's wonderful, being openly in love with Clarke, but so far the physical side of their relationship has not amounted to much. They've stolen a few kisses in storage closets, and they do a lot of rather close hugging. Octavia occasionally points out with an impish grin that they've _always_ done a lot of close hugging, so she can't really see what's new.

He doesn't mind too much, in the grand scheme of things. He loves Clarke for who she is, not for any physical relationship they might have. Her company and her happiness are definitely more important to him.

But he's been attracted to her for quite literally years, so he's somewhat frustrated all the same.

Clearly she's been thinking along similar lines. He works that out, rather abruptly, when they arrive back at Polis from a hunting trip one evening.

"Can you guys take the meat in?" She asks the rest of the party. "I just have to show Bellamy one of the buildings. There's something there I think we could use for the move to Shallow Valley."

With that, she takes his hand, and leads him in the direction of a nondescript shell of concrete.

"That was a terrible excuse." He informs her mildly, as they round the corner and are out of sight of the rover at last.

"Shut up and kiss me." She recommends, tone firm but affectionate.

He does as she asks. He quite likes it when she gets all decisive like that, and he's had a few thoughts about the sex life they might have one day, and the idea it could get him rather excited if she took the lead in the bedroom.

But he stops thinking about that, now. He's preoccupied with the softness of her lips beneath his, with the warm curves of her butt, with the way her generous breasts are pressed against him as she closes the distance between them.

This is better than a storage closet, he decides, or a quick snog behind a tree. He may have his back against a wall of rough concrete, but at least there is no one here to interrupt.

…...

Clarke is excited for the move back to Shallow Valley. She's looking forward to sleeping in her own bed once again – and sharing it with Bellamy, naturally – and she's looking forward to the two of them being able to raise Madi in relative calm, out in nature and away from the cramped bustle of the bunker. Clarke and Bellamy are to lead the first wave of settlers, in effect, sending back meat to the bunker regularly and keeping in touch with those who will stay there. Miller and Jaha will back them up, and Jackson will be the chief medic of the Shallow Valley settlement. Octavia, Abby, Kane, Indra and the rest will follow when all of Wonkru have had their nightblood treatment.

They're leaving tomorrow. This evening is the last evening for quite some time that the whole of Clarke's extended family will find themselves crammed into Octavia's office in their usual manner, and that's a bittersweet feeling. Right now, for example, Bellamy is sitting at Clarke's side, and his face as he looks over at his sister is a little sad, she thinks.

"You're going to miss her." Clarke observes. It's hardly a difficult deduction.

"Yeah." He gives a slightly sad smile. "But at least I know she's in good hands. Abby and Kane will look out for her."

"You mean they'll smother her with well-intentioned advice and try to parent her even though she's a grown woman." Clarke counters, affection for the pair of them bleeding through in her tone.

"Even adults need parents sometimes. I think I've learnt that, these last couple of years. They were really good to me, when we thought we'd lost you."

"I know. They're good people. I'm proud of my mum – is that weird?"

He laughs. "If she was my mum, I'd be proud of her too."

"She basically is your mum. Mother-in-law, or whatever."

He smiles warmly. "I like the sound of that."

She grins, and settles into his shoulder. She's happy, despite the fact she must part ways with her mother tomorrow. If there's one thing she's learnt, since the death wave, it's that family is still family no matter how great the distance between them.

…...

Bellamy knows that their story is far from over, as he sits at Clarke's side and watches her drive the rover towards their new life. He knows that there are plenty of challenges ahead, because this is Earth, and nothing is ever smooth sailing down here for long, in his experience.

But he knows, too, that they will get through it together. He knows that he can face anything – even the death of a loved one – with a supportive family by his side. And he knows that he has it within himself to make the best of any situation, to keep moving on, and to take life as it comes, one choice at a time.

"You seem lost in thought." Clarke comments, still driving. "I should have asked Madi to ride shotgun."

"You know she'd never forgive you if she missed this chance to hang out with Ethan." Bellamy points out. He can hear the two kids laughing in the back of the rover even as they talk.

"Fair point." Clarke agrees easily, smiling at the track ahead.

She looks beautiful. She always does, of course, because that's how being in love works. But he likes to notice these things all the same. He ought to mention it, he thinks. She likes it when he pays her a compliment and he -

"I love you." Clarke says firmly, interrupting his thoughts. She's getting more confident saying that with every day that passes. It must be because she practises saying it so often, he thinks.

"I love you, too. Here's to the future, huh?"

"To the future." She agrees, eyes on the horizon, as Bellamy reaches out to rest a hand on her thigh.

That's how they turn the page. It's time for the next chapter to begin.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
